Contents
5 Ways to Optimize the Lead Generation on Your Website
Optimizing the website for the purpose of generating leads may seem simple. But not as simple as throwing in “click here” buttons on the website and then sit and watch as leads flow in.
Marketers and website designers must look at the generation of leads from a more strategic perspective. In this post, we share 5 Ways to Optimize the Lead Generation on Your Website.
To understand how the website can be optimized, you need to know what the process of generating leads looks like. What components come into play with when a temporary visitor becomes a lead. This is how it looks:
Usually, the process starts when a visitor clicks on a so-called CTA or call-to-action somewhere on one of the pages of the website or blog posts. The CTA directs the visitor to a landing page which also contains a form for the purpose of gathering information about the visitor. When the visitor fills out the form and clicks “Send”, the visitor ends up on a thank you page. The thank-you page gives the visitor access to the offer.
1) Find out how the website performs today
This is easier said than done. Companies and organizations often have poor control here. The reason is that many do not think about this. Most commonly, incoming mail from your website is counted as leads. Other CTAs that are on a website usually call for purchases and perform very poorly. Of course, it depends on the industry’s sales cycle, but still.
Larger organizations with their own web analytics expertise have come much further.
However, it is important to know the status of the generation of leads before you start making changes. Otherwise, you do not know which areas to focus on or how to succeed.
There are various online tools that go through the website and evaluate sources for generating leads such as landing pages and CTAs.
Another way is to compare different landing pages. For example, if landing page X has had 1,000 visits, 10 of them filled out a form and converted to a lead. Then the conversion rate is 1% (10/1000). Then there is landing page Y where 50 visits are converted per 1,000 visits. The conversion rate here will be 5% (50/1000) which is ok. The next step is to see how Y differs from X and optimize according to Y.
And the third alternative is to evaluate visits to landing pages, click on CTAs compared to visits to thank-you pages and see what kind of offers perform best. Then create more variants of these offers.
For options two and three above, you need a web analytics tool like Google Analytics.
Optimize each step of the process to generate leads
If a visitor searched for something and eventually ended up on a blog post your website, then it is not good if you linked the post to an offer on products related to the topic of the article. Make sure offers are related to the page they are on so you can take advantage of visitor interest on that particular topic.
As soon as a visitor comes to the website you can learn about their conversion path. The path starts with a visit and ends with (hopefully) visitors filling out a form and becoming a lead. However, as is often the case, the visit does not end with a conversion. This is when you can optimize the conversion path.
One way here is to conduct A / B testing (in Google Analytics, for example) where you test two versions of a landing page.
In an A / B test of a landing page, it is important to test three different parts of the process for generating leads.
1) Call-to-Action buttons
Use contrasting colors from the website. Keep it simple. Try something new. Like Canva for creating images, fast and free.
2) The landing pages
In general, about landing pages, you can say that the more the better. But of course quality is better than quantity.
Thank you pages
A lot of focus is usually on the landing pages in the process of generating leads. But the thank you page to where the visitor is directed once they have filled in a form should not be overlooked.
In addition to saying thank you, the site should include a link to the offer. The thank-you page may also contain a form for another complementary offer. Like “Contact me”, “I want the Newsletter” and so on. But avoid social sharing buttons as those who come to the thank you page will be able to access the offer without filling out the form on the landing page.
And as an extra good thing, you can send a thank-you email. When a visitor converts to a lead and information such as an email address ends up in a database, there is the opportunity to send a thank you email. In addition to giving a professional impression, the commitment of the recipient increases.
Use thank you e-mails to offer specific offers together with CTAs and encourage the recipient to share on social media.
3) Personalize CTA
First, you decide what type of marketing message you want to adapt and to what audience. Then create a call to action that is adapted to what you want your visitors to do.
4) Test
It doesn’t have to be complicated. Test landing page layout, images. When you create a landing page, make two and direct x% of traffic to one via Google Analytics. The biggest challenge here can be accessing and adding a tracking script on the page to be tested.
5) Grow your leads
No lead will automatically become a customer. Again, it depends a bit on the industry’s sales cycle but for most industries it is. And the higher the product value and the more complex purchasing decisions, the more important it is to grow leads. At the same time, leads are only as good as the effort you put into growing them.
Leads should end up in a workflow after they complete a form. You process the workflow with valuable content that matches their interests. The workflow starts with a relevant follow-up email with good content. And as you grow and analyze the results, you fine-tune the content. For example, e-mail invitations to webinars may have a higher opening rate and conversion rate compared to e-books that offer e-books.
